


Operation SHELL

by AshVee



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Extremis, Gen, Tony Stark's A+ Self Preservation Skills, team fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-16
Updated: 2017-01-16
Packaged: 2018-09-17 22:52:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9349784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AshVee/pseuds/AshVee
Summary: Five Times the team needed the suit more than Tony and one time they needed Tony to have it.





	

**Author's Note:**

> AN: Five times Tony forced the team into the suit and one time he took it himself. This is my first 5+1 fic, so I’m not sure how well this is going to go. 
> 
> 1/16/17: Holy shit, I’m not sure, but I think this just became an Extremis fic and a Tony Stark’s A+ Self-Preservation fic and what the hell. This was supposed to be light and cute and fluffy not vaguely ominous.

1: The First Time: Clint

It wasn’t something he’d actively considered before. His suits were designed for him, his height, his weight, his dimensions. They were tailored to fit him perfectly, but...there was no reason someone else couldn’t be squeezed in, that the suit couldn’t squeeze them a little bit. The arc reactor flickered dangerously in his chest, and his heart gave a little flip-flop that had nothing to do with anxiety. 

He made a decision. 

“Hey...hey come here.” He gestured with his hand, vague and too large. 

Clint stopped his quiet study of the rebar above them. In the last ten minutes, shards of fractured cement and snapped support beams had fallen down toward them. With each one, they had silently wondered if it was enough to start the entire structure tumbling. It hadn’t been, yet. It would take an act of god--and at this point Tony would even take Loki--to save the pair of them if that happened. 

Clint had seen the solution, like he saw everything. 

“You could just blast your way through. The suit could take it.” 

“I could,” Tony agreed. 

When Tony had stayed sprawled on his butt in the wreckage, neither brought the possibility up again.

A wide I-beam overhead groaned menacingly, and Clint took the better part of three minutes to denounce it and its mother. Clint wasn’t exactly realistic when he was cornered, but Tony like that about him. Clint was a fighter like Tony was a fighter. In a dank cave in Afghanistan, Clint wouldn’t have given up either. 

Tony might have found that realization amusing, comforting even, had he not been struggling to breath. The blow to the chestplate he’d taken getting to Hawkeye as the building crumbled underneath him did something-JARVIS couldn’t tell him what exactly, not with the damage-to his left lung. An already decreased pleural space didn’t leave him much room for pulmonary injuries, and his vision was already swimming from hypoxia. 

“C’mere,” he repeated, annoyed Clint had only glanced at him the first time before going back to his morose denouncement of the structural integrity of Manhattan’s historical buildings.

“What’s wrong with you?” Clint asked, and the next thing Tony knew, Clint was crouched over him. Tony didn’t remember closing his eyes. 

“Ah, there we go,” Tony muttered, holding a hand out. Clint took it, gripping his wrist as if to pull the suit up. Tony gripped Clint’s hard and braced himself. “Whatever you do, don’t clench up, Legolas.” 

JARVIS did as JARVIS was commanded because, despite the free world’s best imagination, the AI was Just A Rather Very Intelligent System and not Jarvis. The armor folded off of his forearm, skittered around and started bolding over Clint’s. 

“What the hell are you--” He got further than that in his questioning, Tony was sure, but the suit folded around his head and torso. Moments later, Tony was sitting on his backside on the ground, staring up at the suit. 

“That’s trippy,” Tony muttered. It was. Watching Clint try to maneuver the suit, to get his limbs to respond the way his own would. 

“J?” Tony asked, and just like that, the suit blasted upward, through an area in the cement overhead, and punched out into daylight. Tony had planned the route, knew it was the place least likely to cause structural compromise, but even as sunlight filtered through the dust, pieces of rebar and debris fell around him. 

Tony closed his eyes, resigned to meeting one god or another. Death wasn’t to be feared, not after so many near misses. If anything, as he lay there, breath coming shorter and shorter, it was another adventure. He’d never felt so much like Yinsen as in that moment.

 

\--The First Time: Clint--

Tony woke up. Full stop. 

It was bright and obnoxiously loud, two things he avoided at all cost in the mornings, and yet. He woke up. He only had a moment to wonder why that was so shocking before memory kicked in and he tried to sit up, which, admittedly, wasn’t his best idea. 

“Lay down.” The command came quick and firm, and Tony found himself obeying by virtue of the pain searing through his chest alone. 

“Holy fuck me,” Tony muttered, one hand against his chest. It took a second for him to process that there was something extra hanging out the left side of his chest. “What...what is…”

“A chest tube.” Tony silently thanked whoever had spoken, whoever had commanded he lay down and stood guard as he freaked the fuck out. Even geniuses were allowed to panic for a minute when they woke up with a tube in their chest, even geniuses that had woken up with worse. 

A minute was all he allowed himself, and at the end of it, Clint was standing beside the bed, staring down at him with such a constipated look even Tony couldn’t decipher it. 

“Never do that again,” Clint said firmly. 

“Admit it, you loved it,” Tony said, ignoring the stern glare Legolas insisted upon shooting his way. He rolled his eyes at the annoyance, eased himself on his side, and slept. 

 

2: The Second Time: Natasha

Natasha was, for lack of a better term, completely fucked. She knew it. The rest of the Avengers knew it. The CNN helicopter hovering over the battle knew it. They’d been fighting off Doom-Bots--because it was a Tuesday--and she’d found herself cornered in an alley, her back to a wall a human wasn’t about to scale or break through, with a series of the laser firing bastards lining up to play tag. 

“A little back up, boys?” she asked through the comm. Tony ignored it at first. Widow so very rarely asked for back up and needed it that it was almost dismissed in his mind. 

“Shit,” Hawkeye said, his voice carried through the comms. He sounded winded, like he was running, and Tony saw him leap across a rooftop out of the corner of his eye. 

“Scan, JARVIS,” he ordered, and the AI did as he turned. The heads-up display showed the heat signatures of the bots, and there, buried among them, was Widow. 

“Shit,” he muttered, firing off a repulsor blast now he was facing the battle and not the tech in front of him. It had been delegated to him to monkey with the communication relay between the Bots, and while he was one of their heavy hitters, he was also their tech-guy. 

“Cap, I’m going to back Widow--”

“Negative, Iron Man. We need this shut down. The faster you deal with that, the faster they stop working as a unit.” Tony didn’t bother telling Captain Liberty that three Bots firing at random were just as deadly as fifty with a plan. Instead, he fired once more over his shoulder and trusted his team was--

“Cap, we need some backup here.” Clint did not sound amused, and Tony could just see him out of the corner of his eye, standing on a rooftop and firing down to the alley below. Steve, for all his ability to strategize and plan, couldn’t be in two places at once. With Bruce off on one of his little self-loathing field trips and Thor off-world, it was just the four of them. Four was a difficult number when it came right down to it. 

“Go, Cap,” Tony said. He had little more to do than work his way through a few dozen lines of code, but the hail of laser fire on his back would slow him down considerably if the Captain wasn’t there, covering it. 

“I can’t leave you here, Tony,” Steve said. “They’ll blow you apart.” 

Tony had to admit it wasn’t completely inaccurate. He sighed, considered his options, and made his decision. “Let’s make this a private party, huh, J?” 

“If I may, sir, it would be best if I knew what you were planning before you enacted it.” JARVIS had started to sound entirely too tired, more pissy than anything else. 

“Operation Shell.” JARVIS didn’t like that Tony had come up with a name for the little stunt he’d pulled with Clint, but it didn’t stop him from adding here and there during the planning stages. 

“Agent Romanoff, sir?” JARVIS asked, and Tony didn’t bother with a response. 

“Give me a line to her and the Hawk, J.” Tony gave him a moment to filter the comm. “Back up’s coming, Widow. Legolas if you could keep them off her until the suit can get there?” He didn’t wait for a response before he let JARVIS carry the parts of the suit away from him. 

The first laser blast that skimmed by his hip set his teeth on edge. The next one smoked through his shoulder and deadened his left arm, but seconds later, he felt the heat of something at his back and heard the repulsors whine and sing out. He had time to glance over his shoulder and watch Natasha’s grace infuse the suit before he finished the last of the programming and sent the Bots to dis-organized skittering. 

He vaguely heard Natasha whoop over the comm still in his ear before another laser grazed his temple and he was sent running for cover. 

\--The Second Time: Natasha--

Tony sat on a charred bench, carefully covering the burn on his shoulder with liquid skin. He’d already regained feeling in his fingertips, pleased the stinging numbness had worn off. The wound itself was small, clean through the muscle in his shoulder, and had self cauterized on its way through. 

Cap was sat down a few paces off, cowl pushed away and staring up at the Flatiron Building that sat a few hundred yards away. He hadn’t even bothered to chastise anyone, which was as good a sign as any he was pleased with the fallout. Clint was torn between watching Tony tend to the shoulder wound with an engineer’s precision and not a medics and watching Natasha pull backflips and loop-de-loops in the suit. 

Tony was willing to take another laser burn if it meant Natasha got to flip and twirl and plummet toward the ground in a spiral, childlike glee coming through the com units. 

Hours later, once the debrief was over and the better part of the city’s response team was out in droves to rebuild and regroup, Tony was down in the lab, licking his wounds and working on the shell of a new shielding concept. 

“Stark,” Natasha said, and if he was honest, Tony had stopped jumping when she appeared through the darkness some time ago. It made her feel stealthy though, so he always did, just to make her smile. The fact that it didn’t was concerning. 

“What can I do for you, Lady Spider?” He didn’t look up from the wiring, didn’t divert his many processes from the important. 

“You shouldn’t have done that,” she said simply, settling next to him on his workbench. 

“Eh,” he said, grunting around a screwdriver and pinning down a piece to solder. “It worked out for the best.” 

“I didn’t say it wasn’t tactically the correct choice. Nor did I say I would ever decline piloting the suit in the future, but you shouldn’t have done that.” She let her fingertips graze against his shoulder, the one that still stung hours later. 

“Keep your spy mitts off of my suit, Romanoff,” he said, but there was no bite to it. No desire to hide it away from the world or from her like there might have been a few months ago, a few years ago. Delicate fingertips ghosted through his hair. 

“I appreciate it, Tony,” she said softly. The shadow of a kiss was pressed to his temple, and just like that, she was gone. If his right temple burned for a few minutes, if his shoulder ached a little less, he wasn’t willing to admit to it, at least not out loud. 

 

3: The Third Time: Bruce

Tony wasn’t a question asking type of guy. He was an elbow grease, get in there, get shit done type of guy, but he was good at talking. He was the best at talking, so it fell to him to do the talking for the team. Captain America got his picture taken. He kissed babies and shook hands. Widow was the story of redemption everyone lapped up out of the palm of their hand. She spent time at the local women’s shelter and talked about women’s empowerment in small groups. Hawkeye was an inspiration for those from small places and those with disabilities. He showed up at some children’s rallies and flashed a smile at charities. Bruce was the picture of self control, and he’d been asked to speak in intimate little gatherings on anger management techniques. 

Tony? Well, Tony was on the front page of the paper. He had to stand in front of the flashing cameras and keep a straight face while politicians and military talking heads asked barbed questions and made insinuations. It was...well, it was a bit like voluntarily putting his hand in a blender, but it was his cross to bear. 

So, when others got thrown into that role, he was a little protective, just a little on edge anyway, but when it was Bruce, who had a hard enough time...well…

“And what do you say to the families of those that this other version of yourself has killed? The homes he destroyed? The countless he put out of a job and on the streets? Are we supposed to welcome you on this stage because of--”

“Alright, alright!” Tony shouted, stepping between Bruce and the soon to be fired reporter. “If you’re here to badger someone that has worked tirelessly to assure the safety of the American people, you can pack off.” 

“I’m here to ask question for those that can no longer ask them for themselves,” the reporter said, and Tony just sighed. “And while we’re on the topic, Mr. Stark, what do you have to say about--”

Tony didn’t really listen, not actively. Which was a damning thing for most people, but he wasn’t most people. His subconscious mind was all over that question and his mouth spewing the appropriately snarky answers that would get him ridicule and shame and Captain America and Fury would frown at him tomorrow, but it meant that Bruce was again ignored. 

Tony slipped his bracers off his wrists, subtly dropped them in the suit coat pocket of the scientist as he walked past, and took a few steps forward toward the flash of cameras. Bruce had felt their weight there, because a few minutes later he was subtly excusing himself through the crowd. Tony heard the repulsors whine overhead a few moments later. He smiled and let his subconscious field the questions.

How do you sleep at night knowing your weapons killed American troops, Mr. Stark? 

Has the Merchant of Death gone from the public sector to the private? 

Isn’t it selfish to keep weapons advances from the hands of our military? 

Isn’t this just a larger scheme of biodegradable bullet shells that plant flowers? Are you trying to cover up atrocities with passing pretties so America forgets what you’ve done?

His subconscious was as self-hating as the rest of the flash-and-mic brigade. 

\--The Third Time: Bruce--

The suite was standing in the corner of the workshop when Tony poured himself into the couch, a glass of scotch in hand. The amber liquid caught the light, and he turned it, this way and that, consideringly. The suit was distorted through the glass and alcohol, and he played with the angles because it was better than letting himself think. 

“You didn’t have to do that,” Bruce said, voice that soft hesitance that made Tony ache. It was telling that Tony didn’t startle hearing him, didn’t even tense up. Bruce was family; Bruce was safe in the way Obie had never been. 

“I wanted to,” Tony said. He sat the glass down, the liquor inside untouched. “You shouldn’t have to put up with that. You do a lot of good; people need to get with the-”

“Taking the media hailstorm isn’t just your job, Tony,” Bruce said.

“No, but I’m better at it.” 

Bruce couldn’t argue the point. Instead, he picked up the glass and drained it in one long swallow. Bruce never drank; he claimed it messed with his control, but once or twice, Tony had seen the other man look at a bottle longer than most. It was the look of a recovering alcoholic; Tony knew it so well because he gave the same one time and time again. Bruce just had more self control. 

“Thank you,” Bruce said, setting the glass down carefully, measuring. After a moment, he smiled, as if he’d won some little victory. 

“Nothing to thank me for. I’ve got to get some work done or Pepper’s going to have my-”

“I see why you couldn’t give it up,” Bruce said, cutting him off. He was staring, wistfully, at the suit. “You can give up the alcohol, the women, the nightlife...Pepper even, but you couldn’t give up the suit, not even to keep her. I didn’t understand until today.” 

Bruce left him there, on the sofa. 

“Yeah,” Tony muttered to himself a few long minutes later. “Yeah.” 

 

4: The Fourth Time: Thor

The helicarrier had been compromised. Again. Tony had told them about this shit. He’d volunteered to build them a firewall the likes of which the Atlantic Ocean couldn’t put out, but Fury was Fury. They had people, he’d claimed. No one was getting in, he claimed. 

Tony once claimed he was the love child of the Turkish Emir and a playboy bunny. It didn’t make it any more true. 

The Avengers had been on the ground, responding to a false alarm call about a bomb threat beneath Grand Central Station. The virus hit SHIELD systems harder than anything they’d been prepared for, and the only communication to go through was a steady low frequency SOS. 

Systems down, the Quinjet was little more than a fancy model airplane which left the pedestrians stuck on the ground. Tony had offered to piggy back someone up with him, but Cap had put the kibosh on that quickly. It wouldn’t do to get someone else up there that couldn’t get down, and so Iron Man, Thor, and Falcon were scrambling. Thor and Falcon were evacuating, doing their best to get as many people off the helicarrier with as much efficiency as possible while Tony tried to put together a fried computer system out of duct tape, chewing gum, and the dreams of the many. 

“How we doing?” Natasha’s voice came through the comm. 

“About as good as I told Fury we’d be doing if he didn’t get this shit taken care of,” Tony sniped back. “Why didn’t we leave him up here, trying to fix-”

“Stark, we have a problem.” Falcon rarely cut off Tony’s ranting, mostly because he knew it was meaningless prattle that made Tony feel better. 

“What’s the problem?” His hands didn’t stop floating over the keys, a delicate fencing match back and forth. 

“Thor just fell off the helicarrier.” 

“He has--”

“Without Mjolnir.” Tony rolled his eyes inside the suite. 

“He’s survived a fall-”

“With two agents, and I can only carry-” 

“Son of a-” 

The suit was off and flying through walls and floors faster than the words. Tony sat there, swearing and spitting vitrol at anyone that would listen through the comms. 

In the end, the carrier came down-gently-just off the coast. While Tony was a miracle worker, he wasn’t a tech god. There was only so much he could do with two hands full of shit. It was only him and two techs on a life raft, glaring murder as it was tugged to shore. 

His anger only lasted until he saw Thor, standing rigid and unmoving, only partially wrapped in the suit. The laughter rolled out of his chest in great, buoyant waves. 

Operation Shell had been comprehensive, but there was only so much Tony could do to make extra space within the armor. The biceps of the thing were more like plate shielding, and the chest piece awkwardly strained at the joints, wires and reinforcing binding all that kept the pieces together. The thighs were missing entirely, and it was only by the grace of one rivet that the calves of the boots held. 

“Man of Iron, I am pleased that you were able to save me from my own folly, but the voice in the suit will not see reason. He insists that you be present when he allows me-”

The cackling howl from Clint and the slow, melodious chime from Natasha were worth the awkwardness of standing on the dock in only his under armor. The Captain, for all his grim frowning, couldn’t hide the amusement in his eyes when JARVIS finally released his captive. 

“Big guy, I’m going to have to redo all of this, but it’s absolutely worth it.” Tony clapped Thor on the shoulder as he walked past him, hands grabbing for a SHIELD hoodie being offered by a junior agent. 

“It is a good man that would give up his own life for the safety of his friends,” Thor proclaimed as the armor fell off of him in little whining pieces. “It is a better one that would give his life for those his friends could not save.” 

Tony froze at the proclamation, giving Thor a measuring glance before rolling his eyes. 

“Whatever you say, big guy. JARVIS, let’s get this all back to the tower.”

 

5: The Fifth Time: Steve

“SHIELD wouldn’t know a HYDRA base if they flew a flag out the top and pumped evil theme music out over an intercom,” Clint groused, rubbing his hands up and down over his biceps. They’d known they were going to Greenland, and in the spirit of not freezing their nipples off, they’d all accepted thin thermal under layers, but they hadn’t anticipated that the jet would be shot down and SHIELD would take hours to pick them up. 

“I move that we set Thor’s cloak on fire,” Natasha said, arms crossed tightly under her breasts. She shifted awkwardly from foot to foot, almost imperceptible. 

Thor removed the large, red garment in a sweep and offered it out, when Natasha didn’t take it, Clint snatched it and wrapped it around the pair of them. Thor looked on with a proud sort of expression. 

Bruce, as the Hulk, sulked moodily a few paces off. The Hulk was a bit pouty about being out in the cold. Thor, as a Norse God, didn’t so much as get a goosebump. Tony was warm inside the suit, the electrical components giving off enough heat to keep him comfortable even if there wasn’t built in climate control - and there was. Tony quietly surveyed the team. Natasha and Clint were of the most concern, but wrapped together in Thor’s cloak, they would be fine until pick up. The Hulk didn’t seem to mind overly much beyond pouting, and Thor looked on as though he wasn’t quite aware cold was a thing that could harm Midguardians.

Tony spared Steve a glance. The Captain stood in his uniform, cowl pulled up over his face, staring resolutely ahead. Tony had almost turned away from him when he noticed the complete stillness. As if frozen in place, Steve didn’t so much as blink, his muscles held tense and still.

Tony frowned behind the facemask. The serum shouldn’t have allowed Steve to be more than passingly chilled, but he stood there with a thousand yard stare that--

“Son of a bitch,” Tony muttered, eyeing the man critically. “Cap?” 

“Steve?” Natasha echoed, but the man kept staring ahead, lost to the world. 

“The ice,” Tony said simply, and Natasha nodded, leaving the cover of Thor’s cloak only long enough to draw Steve in with her. Despite the body heat and the slight protection from the wind, Steve didn’t stop. 

Tony ran over the possibilities, the Quinjet still a half hour away, and Steve staring at the ice beneath their feet as though he couldn’t see anything else, wouldn’t see anything else ever again. Tony stifled a long suffering sigh. 

“Turn up the heat, J, and throw up someplace warm on the HUD.” 

“Of course, Sir,” JARVIS said, not needing to be told. The bitter cold came through the disengaging joints, and Tony’s breath left him in a whoosh. Clint squawked angrily as he and Natasha leaped backward from Steve as the armor closed around him. 

“What are you doing?” Natasha asked a moment later, her narrow shoulders drowned in red fabric. 

“Cap’s on a beach somewhere in the Mediterranean,” Tony said simply. The biting cold set his teeth to chattering, and with an exaggerated eye-roll, Natasha swept Tony between herself and Clint. 

“Lucky bastard,” Clint groused, but said nothing more until the Quinjet landed half an hour later. 

If Steve sat, relaxed if not embarrassed, an hour later, in his own head and not thousands of miles away beneath a frozen ocean, it was worth it. If he quietly leaned his shoulder against the shoulder of the suit, Tony again inside, no one said anything. 

 

6: The Sixth Time: Tony

“I’m going to rip your throat out and feed it back to you,” Natasha said, voice that eerie calm she had perfected in the Red Room. 

“These threats are below you, Ms. Romanov,” Dr. Adelai Niska said, squinting through his round glasses at the contents of a syringe. The lab was well lit and clean, startlingly so for the lair of yet another deranged psychopath hell bent on…

“Why are you even doing this?” Tony asked from where he stood a few paces off. He was blissfully unrestrained, his hands needing to be free to help the good doctor. Niska gave him an amused half glance over his spectacles. 

“I am not a villain that will monologue while your brilliant mind comes up with a way to save your friends, Dr. Stark.” Tony bristled at that. “Now please, review the nanite code. I would like to advance to testing this afternoon, if at all possible.” 

“You’re not going to get away with this,” Steve said, voice still slurred. Adelai Niska was a careful man, and an intelligent one. While Steve could burn through tranquilizers and sedatives quickly, his nerves were still subject to damage. The lidocaine drip currently bathing his C2 nerve roots made it near impossible for him to do much more than mutter and glare. The dizziness would be damning enough, Tony knew.

The fact that Steve’s words were the world’s greatest cliche was enough to make Tony smile despite himself. Niska was, in fact, probably going to get away with this, at least for now. Of course, they were the Avengers, not the Preventers, and they’d always gotten their man in the end. 

“I told you, nanites are good to go. If there’s a problem, it’ll be on your end, Dr. Niska.” 

“Humor me,” Adelai said, going back to his work table. Dr. Niska was an old man, nearing eighty, and he had no fear of death. Tony had figured that much out in the time they’d been trapped. Clint, Natasha, and Steve were all incapacitated in one way or the other, though Clint least of all. The archer had been hit over the head with something, and while he’d woken two or three times, he was in and out of consciousness behind a set of metal bars. Natasha shared that prison, though her wrists and ankles were bound. 

Tony glared at the metal covering the floor of their prison. It was an intelligent man that could control with little more than a threat. Niska was far from stupid. The floor and chains were metal, good copper conductors if Tony could tell from a glance - and he could. Not the strongest, but they didn’t have to be when they were hooked up to enough amps to flash fry anyone that might come in contact. Right now, the current was off, but Niska hadn’t allowed the switch to leave his person, which was a good thing, if Tony wanted Clint and Natasha to survive the possible fall out. 

The suit stood in the corner of the lab, empty and waiting. It wasn’t an option. 

He’d read the code. He’d read it over and over again. Why someone like Niska was interested in Extremis, Tony had no idea, but the man had calmly announced they were going to perfect it, and they’d gotten to work. Three days they’d been in the lab, and in that time, Tony had isolated the problem with the nanites - in theory. Niska had been doing his own work, quietly and pleasantly enough for someone threatening to barbecue Tony’s friends. 

“I think,” Niska announced a few hours later. “I think we are ready. Would you agree, Dr. Stark?” 

Tony considered his code one last time, glanced concernedly at Natasha and Clint, and nodded. “I can’t guarantee it’s going to work for you, even if we got everything right.” Niska was an old man, and Tony could see only one reason he would be so pressed for time on the serum. “Your body might be too old to-”

“Did you think it was for me?” Adelai asked, voice carefully edged. He shook his head, slow and sad. “My great granddaughter has been on the cardiac transplant waiting list for three years, Dr. Stark. She will not wait another three days, one way or the other. I can’t steal a heart, but I can fix hers.” 

Tony blew a sigh out his nose and nodded. 

“A successful trial, and you will be free to go,” Niska said, soft and considering, talking more to the syringe than Tony. “Your friends will leave as they came, Dr. Stark. Is this an acceptable outcome for you? Afterall, men like you and I know some concessions must be made in the name of progress.” 

Niska was actually asking, which was what made Tony consider the words more heavily. 

“Don’t you fucking dare,” Clint said, voice as sharp as his arrows. “Stark, don’t you-”

“It is,” Tony said, and Clint kicked the bars in front of him viciously. Natasha stood a few paces behind, staring at Tony like there was something there she could read, if only the light would highlight the words. Steve had passed out, the resultant dizziness from the C2 denervation getting to him.

“What’s your granddaughter’s name?” Tony asked, rolling the sleeve of his undersuit up above his elbow. 

“Yuliha,” Adelai said, eyes soft. Tony nodded and held out his forearm. 

“Are you sure you would not rather…” Niska’s eyes slid over Natasha and Clint. “If this doesn’t work it will be a tragedy to the scientific world.” 

“If it does, Yuliha will grow into a beautiful woman,” Tony said. Niska didn’t argue further. 

Extremis was a rush of heat and electricity. It was dizzying, the faint buzz beneath his skin, the way that his whole body seemed to sing. A faint, golden flush started along his skin, and in a moment, he could see everything. He was close enough. 

His fingers closed around the pendant Niska wore, crushing the trigger to little broken circuits and plastic. Adelai smiled, eyes wide and hopeful, as he watched Tony pace around the lab, too much energy and too little to do with it. The bars to Natasha’s cell bent and one finally gave under his bare palm. Her wide, cautious eyes followed him as he stepped into the cell and broke the chains from the wall. 

“You can get Legolas and Cap out?” Tony asked. Natasha didn’t answer. Her jaw slack, eyes knowing. 

Niska saw the failure in the golden glow then, saw the way Tony’s hands shook, the way his eyes couldn’t settle on one thing. 

“They won’t be your next test subjects,” Tony said simply. Niska closed his eyes and sagged into a rolling desk chair. He was a man defeated. 

“Go,” he said simply. He held another syringe in his hands carefully, reverently. It was the bright rich orange of the original Extremis, what they’d been working at modifying. Tony stepped into the suit, blew the hinges of Clint and Steve’s cells, and took off, blowing through the far wall and flying. 

Distance was all that he could think about. Distance from the lab. Distance from the ground. Distance from everything and everyone he cared about. He flew for minutes. He flew for hours. 

In the end, he was gone six months. Six months in a little god forsaken spit of land in the middle of nowhere. Extremis could blow his body apart and take nothing but trees and a log cabin. It never did. 

He didn’t call. He didn’t write. He didn’t do so much as activate the tracker in the suit. He just sat there, in the middle of nowhere, staring down at his hands, vaguely gold on occasion, completely normal others. The heat, the electricity, the energy all faded with time, but he found that when he was outside, trying his hand at chopping wood or patching a leak in the roof, he could bring it back. 

That was how he was found, six months from the day he disappeared, sitting on a log in the middle of nowhere, staring down at his faintly golden hands. He thought it would be Rhodey or even the Captain. Afterall, Steve had crossed enemy lines to bring back fallen comrades before. It might have been Natasha, using her spy resources - or maybe even Thor, the otherworldly Heimdall telling him where Tony hid. 

No, in the end, it was someone Tony had never seen before in tactical gear and eye-black. The man approached him like a fawn, careful and slow, as if he could sense the danger beneath Tony’s skin. 

“Eyes on,” the man said into a comm. “Approaching target.” 

Tony brought his hand up, held out as if the repulsors were there, and because he’d gestured, the gauntlet was there, slipping through his skin as the nanites, harnessing the power within his cells and making it a weapon. 

“I’m not going to die easy,” Tony said simply. 

“Way Natasha and Stevie tell it,” the man said, that edge disappearing from his voice. “If you aren’t already dead, you’re not going to die at all.” 

Tony made a little considering noise in the back of his throat and let the nanites slip back into his bloodstream. 

“That’s a neat trick,” the man said. 

“It’s dangerous,” Tony said, though he wasn’t talking about the nanites, about the fact that the suit seemed to be him now and not the other way around. 

“I know a thing or two about that,” the man said, a sardonic little smile on his lips. “Let’s get you out of here.” 

If the Winter Soldier pulled Tony out of a forest in the middle of nowhere, he wouldn’t admit it. He wouldn’t admit that the suit, the thing that he no longer needed, was wanted. It ached to know it was gone, that there was no reason to put up the front of repairs and remodeling. 

In the end, Iron Man was Tony Stark. Tony Stark was Iron Man. He didn’t wear the suit into battle, the suit wore him, and if there were emergency models in the basement of Avengers tower that had telescoping vision for Clint, the agility Natasha needed, could expand out the moment Bruce’s heart rate skyrocketed, held even Thor’s shoulders, could keep Steve from his memories, and stopped at the shoulder for Bucky...well.

Operation SHELL was more important now than ever. Extremis was never stable for long.


End file.
